Page 18 of Summer Skin

CHASE FELT Alight brush against his cheekbone. Eyes blinking open, he found himself wound tightly in Aven’s arms, still nude from an afternoon of sex, the warm, golden light of early evening painting the room in a lazy glow.

“Why’d you wake me?” he wondered, yawning into the palm of his hand.

“Guess I was curious if you’d rather I were a merman or a dragon?”

Chase blinked at him sleepily. He was used to these sorts of random questions from Aven by now. “A merman, I guess. I’d fight a dragon.”

“Does that make you a knight?”

“No.” He gave a soft squeeze to Aven’s bicep. “That would be you.”

Aven let out a doubtful huff. “Believe me, there’s no shining armor in my closet.”

“Why do you say that?” Chase leaned up on his elbow. “I think you’d be pretty good at slaying monsters.”

“I’m no hero. I can’t even make sense of which way is up half the time.”

“You seem like Marvel material to me.” Throwing the covers off, Chase made an attempt at rising from bed, but Aven hooked an arm out and drew him back down. “Hey,” he protested, a hand resting on Aven’s chest, “I have to go home tonight. Brooklyn will want to do a whole leprechaun thing for St. Patrick’s tomorrow. I think there’s a mystery she’s planned out with a pot of gold.”

“One more kiss,” Aven implored.

“There’s no such thing as one more kiss with me and you. We’ll be here for another hour.”

“Okay,” Aven said and grinned, wolfishly. “Another hour sounds good to me.”

“You’ll end up trying to trick me into staying over.” He smiled, slightly amused.

Aven walked his fingertips along the length of Chase’s inner arm. “What would you do if I kidnapped you? Right now. What if I took you far away from here?”

Chase gave him a sideways look. “Where would you take me?”

A bit of time passed while Aven imagined his answer. Finally, “A private island. Somewhere warm and sunny where we’d wear summer skin all year long.”

“We’d wear summer skin?”

He shifted closer, tracing the thin blue line of a vein in Chase’s wrist. “Mmhm. The bronze of sun-kissed skin means summer. And summer always meant more time away from parents and teachers. More time to do and see, to feel, the way I wanted to.”

Chase held his gaze for a long moment. Aven was such a force of nature. It shook Chase a little to think of anyone trying to twist Aven into being someone he wasn’t.

He wove his fingers through Aven’s. “What’s it like on our island?”

“Okay, it’s just you and me and a couple of guitars. There’s none of the bullshit of modern life and waking up only to spend all day at work so you can buy a house bigger than your neighbor’s. There’s the sun and coconut trees and water so clear you can see your toes in the sand when you’re chin deep. Whatever we wish for appears because we made this island up when we were kids and it’s ours, our place to be safe. Where we’ll never be apart.

“We could spend a week learning to speak dolphin. Or you could teach me how to draw using flowers off the land. We’d build a treehouse … or a hut out over the waves. I’d learn to cook over a fire, and we’d share our garden with the birds.”

Chase’s chest swelled with longing for the eternal summer fantasy Aven painted for them. A place that would never truly exist, where nothing mattered but their love. And it was love he felt for Aven. A sort of love that practically vibrated through his whole body every moment of every day. But they hadn’t said the words yet. Being in love was a first, it still felt delicate. And so, Chase would wait for Aven to one day say it first, and in the meantime, he poured his feelings out by pulling Aven to him, giving him a kiss that he hoped conveyed everything that he couldn’t quite say out loud.

“I’d let you kidnap me,” he told Aven when they parted for breath.

“For real?”

“For a little while. I”d have to come back to Brooklyn eventually.”

Aven tilted his head to one side, considering. “She can visit the island on weekends. And then the rest of the time it’s me and you.”

“In our summer skin.”

“Our summer skin,” Aven agreed, hooking a leg over Chase’s thigh. “You don’t really have to go home this early, do you? Stay a little longer?”

“Okay,” he agreed, easy as ever when it was Aven asking.

“Or a lot longer,” Aven coaxed, testing his luck. He pressed a gentle kiss to the line of Chase’s jaw. “I could kiss you all night.” A thumb brushed over his nipple. “I love how your body feels.” A whisper of breath in his ear. “I love the noises you make when I touch you. And I love—” he ran the pad of his finger from Chase’s Adam’s apple, down his throat, to the pool of his chest “—this.”

“What?” Chase said, breathy.

“The way you get goosebumps. Every time.”

His finger traced farther down, to Chase’s belly, drawing the shape of a heart around a childhood scar.

I love you, Chase thought, as Aven formed the heart over and over again. I love you more than anything I’ve ever loved. I love you, I love you, I love you, I—

“Hey.”

“Is for horses.” Something his mother always said.

“Do you love me?”

Chase burst out laughing. He must have been thinking way too loud. Of course Aven would find a way to draw the confession from him first.

“Is that a funny thing to ask?” Aven said, his brow wrinkling.

“No … I don’t know. I was waiting for you to say it first.” Seeing the vulnerable look etched all over Aven’s face, suddenly it felt all too easy to say out loud. “Yes, Aven.” He leaned in, brushing their noses together, hand tangling in Aven’s hair. “I love you very much.”

He could feel the smile when it stretched across Aven’s face. “I love you too, Chase.”

A bloom sprouted, this ray of warmth and light growing in his chest. Aven’s hand stroked the back of his neck, and Chase nudged even closer, still.

“I’ll love you forever,” Aven said softly.

I wish, Chase thought. He wished it with every last beat of his heart. But he wasn’t naive enough to believe Aven wouldn’t take off for college soon, find people who had a world more in common with him, and eventually move on. Until one day, when he’d simply forget Chase existed. An old memory to stick in a shoebox.

Aven nuzzled against him, murmuring more sweetness into his ear. And for every promise, Chase wished even harder on the plastic stars clinging in the pattern of Lyra on the ceiling.

I wish, I wish, I wish that were true.

I wish for summer skin.

I wish for you.

Aven rolled on top of him, the fading sunlight streaming into the bedroom creating a halo around the crown of his head. He smoothed his thumb over Chase’s mouth. Chase knew he couldn’t keep him forever. But this, this feeling of want and trust and devotion, it was alive right now, inside both of them.

They were each other’s first love, and whatever was to come, nothing could ever change that. And whether it would only last for another day, or week, or months, the genuine connection they had here, now, would forever remain true.

Chase let himself fall even deeper.